Yeah, I got PS+ around the PS4 announcements, when there was the buy 12 months get 15 promotion (August or September?). Didn't get a Vita until recently, but I had been 'purchasing' the free games every month.

The third act when you're all "I'm an Assassin" was pretty bogus. It felt completely contradictory to the story they were telling and the game play they were employing up to that point. I can overlook the game play not fitting anymore, I mean I've got no problem with Nathan Drake committing genocide, but it just felt like a bad fit in this instance. I was hoping Edward would just stay neutral and keep being the audiences voice in cut scenes when he calls the whole feud thing for what it is: nonsense.

But then there's the "RL" stuff. Hoooooooooooooooooly shit. Terrible. Again it felt halfbaked, which I think is evidence of them wanting to ditch all of this stuff. The sage being the same person forever? Terrible. The giant baby face from Matrix 2 scene followed by the over the top use of the word "fuck"? Laughable. Sean and Rebecca? Get rid of them. They were the weakest characters in the Desmond games, we don't need them anymore. There was just so much nonsense to the RL stuff this time that it almost made me forget how much I enjoyed the pirate stuff.

Don't get me wrong, all the pirate storylines? Two thumbs way up. When you were hanging out in Nassau or building your pirate cove it was glorious. And whenever the Assassins V Templars came up in the beginning, Edward was just so great at not giving a shit. It sounds like I hated the game but I really, really enjoyed it. It just got so bogged down in the old problems of the preceding games that those problems really show through.

I was happy with the 3rd act, but it could've had a much better transition, rather than Edward gets drunk & depressed.

The sage being identical over time was fine for me, but I'm a sucker for a twist. On paper the RL sections looked good. In practice? Not so much. If they keep adding modern day sections to the franchise they desperately need to have an option to skip them. Maybe not on the first playthrough, but definitely subsequent ones. I'm replying AC4 for Edward, not employee #3627481.

After everything, I keep giving this series a pass because of how much I love the games. 4 could've bombed but I still would be getting AC5 on release because I love jumping to these different time periods and running on ALL OF THE ROOFS!

I'd contribute, but I have only played one game that came out in 2013. (Bleed)

So my list is:
The Late Starter Award for Best Game That Didn’t Come Out This Year: Katawa Shoujo
The “Why The Hell Did They Release This Garbage” Award for Super Shittiness: Bleed
Most Bomb-Ass Character: Wryn from Bleed
Coolest “HOLY SHIT” Moment: Pretty much anything from Bleed. So much slow-mo.
Most Kick Ass Multiplayer: Erm... next category.
The “This Music is Making Ear Love to Me” award for Best Soundtrack: Bleed
Keanu Reeves “Whoa” Trailer of the Year: Titanfall, I guess? I don't watch a lot of trailers.
The Outta Left Field Award for Most Surprising Game: Bleed
Best Use of Your Money Award for Best DLC: NEXT!
The “Someone Painted This With A Goddamn Rainbow” Award for Best Art Style: Bleed
The most Dick Kickingest Game of the Year: Bleed

Weird thing happened on the way to the gym this morning. On two separate occasions strangers stopped their cars to offer me a ride. I appreciated the gesture, but the whole stranger danger message stuck well and truly a while back. Still, beats the guy who gave me the finger the other day for no reason. Haha!

To get to my gym I've got to walk past a lot of post apocalyptic urban decay. That's half the fun. I like to pretend I'm Rick Grimes on the look out for walkers. Maybe they thought I was stranded in the middle of no where? XD

Morning Peeps. In at the ski field, and damn does it live up to the Japanese reputation. Even the snow here is polite. It's constantly snowing lightly, but it's just super duper pretty, and means that there's this soft lovely powder over everything. Also, I walked around Tokyo in just a T-shirt, and I think the locals thought I was mad. Finally: New TAY, wooo!

Yeah, skied a lot in Australia (Canberran so I was up every weekend in some winters), and I've been to Canada twice, and Italy and Switzerland once each (braggy brag brag)(and the Switzerland trip included some Italy stuff because we were at the border). It's really nice, but my knees are not coping.

I can't login at work because my account had been deleted. My account has been deleted because I was supposed to finish work on Dec last year. Now I need to fill out forms. prove that I am who I say I am and prove that my finish date was extended.

This would usually be a difficult task, but put in the fact that it's just after Christmas holidays and no one wants to do anything. So here I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for people to actually do work.

"Don't worry Jesse, just show up Jan 6th and it will be all sorted". Why do I always listen to idiots.

Cool. I ordered one from JB Hifi online last night and can't wait to check it out. Speaking of Guitar Hero, it's quite sad how the franchise has died off since 2010 due to over-saturation or what not. It was kinda great back in the day. Sad face.

Played guitar/bass before? I've been playing guitar for a few years but I still found it fun. I bought it mainly as a really easy way to learn songs and also discover some bands and songs I may not have heard of otherwise. Since I've played guitar before a lot of the lessons and techniques are nothing new to me but I would've loved something like this when I started out.

Let's hope you bought Rocksmith 2014 and not the original because 2014 is so much more better! Better layout, more song variety and it's just better than the first in pretty much every way. I got 2014 in November or so but I liked it so much I went and got the original anyway so I could import its songs into 2014 (gotta pay a small fee though).

What platform? I'm playing on PC so the Rocksmith song import tool (that lets you play Rocksmith songs on 2014) requires that you own the original Rocksmith on Steam and you also need it in order to buy Rocksmith's original DLC. So even though Rocksmith's DLC works on 2014, Steam doesn't let you purchase any unless you own Rocksmith :( (it comes up with an error, it's a Steam issue though).

On consoles I think you just need a save game from Rocksmith in order to buy the import tool. It's $10 on PC but I don't know what price it'll be on consoles. Pretty cheap for like 50 more songs though!

PS3, it arrived today. Initial impressions: not as straight forward and easy to pick up as Guitar Hero. Not as addictive either. I have a little experience with guitar already (been playing since I was five) and I'm not sure as to just how the game will adjust to my style accordingly. So far, the lessons suck - I just want to jam. I'm sure over time I will grow to enjoy it though.

You can just completely skip the lessons and go straight into "Learn a Song" which is essentially just play a song mode. It starts off super slow and easy and it'll get progressively harder with more notes depending on how well you play what's shown. It's pretty good but what I usually do (and this is kind of hidden and not really explained IMO), is go into Riff Repeater, select the whole song and just set it to around 50 or so difficulty, so there's a lot more notes and progression doesn't feel as slow.

I don't really bother with the lessons but they're good for learning the symbols the game uses to describe each technique (which isn't really explained well either).

What I do is just go through each song and play it and if I like it I'll use Riff Repeater to learn the riffs and consequently the song and then I just jam between the songs I've learnt, while also learning new ones. Session Mode is kinda cool too but I'm too terrible at scales to benefit from it :P

Good morning TAY, back to work in this the follow on year of Luigi.
I really can't be bothered with it but it needs to get done. My goal this year is to do more things, I'm starting a course in feb as well as most likely going to Sydney in feb! Which will be fun. Also I should be moving in the later part of the year down the coast in Melbourne which is a big step for me.

Brisbane is a shit hole, Sydney has too many people, Adelaide is full of churches, Perth is well Perth, Hobart it's too fucking cold there all year round, Canberra is full of politicians & Darwin it's too fucking humid :P

Morning all. I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. This week promises to be pretty good with BOARD GAMES on Thursday and Numenera on Wednesday. :D

I've been playing Warframe lately and I've been enjoying being a space-ninja-badass. Only slightly annoyed at the f2p model but they deserve a bit of money for making a fairly decent quality game.

Also played some Pathfinder at the weekend with me as GM. My party almost died multiple times (including to a bull at one stage) but they survived thanks in part to my being lenient on them. Then again, I suppose pitching 4th-level characters against Hydras and Cerberi and stuff is a little bit overkill.

Hive is a two player abstract tile laying game that is quite a bit like Chess. You have a range of different bugs that move in different ways and you are trying to surround the other person's Queen. It's shallower than Chess but also much faster and interesting in different ways. The Grasshoppers move like Cannons in Chinese Chess. That isn't really relevant but I felt like saying it.

I don't really know what you have or like, so it's a bit hard to blindly recommend. Maybe The Witches? Based on the Tiffany Aching Discworld novels, you go around Lancre trying to deal with problems to prove that you're the best witch. If you run into another witch, you have a cup of tea.

If you don't have 7 Wonders, get 7 Wonders. It is easily one of my favourite games and it scales fantastically from three to seven players. It plays quite a bit like a MtG draft (after all, the key mechanic is drafting) but the key difference is that you get to see everyone's choices after they make them.

It means that there is a great deal of strategy and decision making. The trade and war mechanics tend to make you focus on just your neighbours but sometimes it helps to lift your vision to see that the person on the other side of the table has been fed all of the science cards.

I cannot recommend this game enough.

The expansions are also great value, adding more content and more decisions. Probably not something you need to pick up until you've had 10+ plays of the original but something to definitely consider if you keep busting out the base game.

I think I'll be there but probably around 50/50
Have some medical stuff late afternoon so depending on how late they are running I'll see what time I get home. There is also a boardgames thing on the cards that I think Mrs Tigs is interested in so I'll see

"Allows" is the problem. If somebody wants to leave their car window open, even all the way, isn't that their business? I mean, what if you have a convertible and physically can't "secure" it (which is the argument they're using) while away from the vehicle. Does that mean all open-top cars should be fined?

Now, if his car gets broken in to and/or stolen as a result of being not properly secured then that's an issue between the guy and his insurance company, but I don't see it as being a matter for the police. Silly silly silly.

In that scenario, there would still be a cost of having to report the theft to the police. That might be why the law exists in the first place, to discourage people leaving their car in a condition that makes it easier to steal. Reduces the cost in time and money to the police for having to do police reports.

So after getting back into Mount & Blade Warband over the weekend (and talking to @mythamphetamine about it) I figured I'd ask: How many people would be keen on a multiplayer game of War of the Roses? For those that don't know anything about it, think Battlefield: Medieval. It's also the spiritual successor to Mount & Blade, but multi only.

If you don't have it, there's actually a F2P version. I believe the only limit is that you can't make custom classes (mix and match weapons, armour etc.).

I have played and enjoyed that game immensely.
However I would reeealy not recommend playing it now, especially if you have not done so before.
Everyone who still plays it is either stupid good or cheating and will kill you in one hit, over and over again, and thats on the one existing aussie server with minimal lag.
It is almost completely unplayable for the un-hardcore.

Hello Tay, I've had three weeks off. Now I'm back at work.
Bah buggery hum...buggery.
Mrs Quiz loved Ace Attorney (could only grab Apollo Justice) and original Sam and Max and DOTT/Maniac Mansion and a whole host of other goodies.
I got the book of Hyperbole and a Half, Snuff and Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett, clothes and stuff. I'm a happy man.
Got to play lots with quiz Jr over the last three weeks.
Missed you all.
Have triple digit unread emails in my inbox and lots are marked urgent.

How would you feel being a critic, then?
If you enjoy movies and video games and discussing them with friends, surely you know what makes a GOOD video game/movie by now?

So...could you write about what makes a video game/movie bad?

(Please note that I am not a careers councellor. I am an office worker stuck in a suit and tie wishing he could spend days at home playing with his kids and writing award winning novels. I do not write award winning novels. I still haven't completed my first one. But I dream of doing it.

So all advice should be taken with a mine load of salt instead of a pinch.)

Yeah, it's a pretty garbage argument. Sure, pointlessly pursuing money can lead to a wasted life but the reality is we've got bills to pay, families to support, and there's a bunch of work that's necessary for society to function that no one really wants to do. It's all well and good to pursue your dreams, but I have friends who tried that and all they wound up with was a bunch of debt and a multi-year gap in their resume.

Plus, like you said, a good chunk of us would do nothing. If I won the lottery today and had 10 million bucks in my account, I might keep working for 6 months, tops. After that, I'd sit at home and play video games, probably travel some, etc. If I quit my job to play video games without a multi-million dollar buffer between me and destitution, there's not a single person who would objectively think that was a wise decision.

Very few people successfully make a living off playing video games and 99.9% of gamers will never have the talent to compete at a level where a decent living can be made.

I know. It's one of those "Go follow your dreams" arguments that are nice to listen to but are also almost impossible to follow.

All of the people I know who followed their dreams and are fulfilled ended up landing in a career/job/position that was somewhat related to their dreams. Like they aimed for the stars, ended up on Mars and said "That's close enough".

Still, I dream of the day I don't have to wear a tie anymore (metaphorically speaking).

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